Senate wants assurance that F-35 will cost no more than stated (Source: Lockheed Martin)

any cost overruns would be paid by contractor

The cost of the F-35 JSF continues to soar and delays continue to
mount though the aircraft is now finally in production in some variants. As the
aircraft stat to roll of the production assembly line, the Senate is taking
steps to control the price of the fighter as the next low-rate initial
procurement (LRIP) is set to enter negotiations.

The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee has passed a bill on June 16
that required the LRIP-5 purchase set for 2012 to be at a fixed price. That means that any cost overruns
in the development or production of the F-35 purchase will be absorbed totally
by suppliers.

An emailed statement from the committee said, "The bill contains
a unique requirement that the low-rate initial procurement contract for the
FY11 lot of the Joint Strike Fighter (LRIP-5) program must be a fixed-price
contract and the contract must require the contractor to absorb 100 percent of
costs above the target cost."

If the full Senate passes the bill, it will be legally binding. Defense News reports that the bill fully
supports the Pentagon budget request for the F-35. The budget allots $3.2
billion to purchase Navy versions of the F-35 and $3.7 billion for the USAF
version of the fighter. In total, the Pentagon wants 32 F-35 fighters in 2012
with 19 going to the USAF, seven for the Navy and six for the Marine Corps.

Defense News adds that a Defense Acquisition Board review to establish a new cost
baseline for the F-35 has been postponed until this fall. The review has been
rescheduled for late May before being reset to mid-June and the rescheduled
again.

The
effort to control the price of the F-35 program comes in part from the estimate
that the F-35 program could cost as much as $1 trillion in operating costs.

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Sorry, not even gonna click that link. I'm familiar with Ausairpower, and any self-respecting armchair fighter jet enthusiast knows that Carlo Kopp is full of crap. The guy has an agenda and a half...and he's usually deliberately misrepresenting/misreporting facts, if not outright making them up.

Mudhen is right on this one, Kopp has been repeatedly discredited in the military aviation world. Even GlobalSecurity.org will no longer talk to him. The only thing he has going for him is he likes to talk on things that are usually classified by their very nature. He doesn't have classified access and of course no one that does can confirm or deny his work publicly. That's the only reason he gets away with what he does.

He rolls through the US every once and awhile on the lecture circuit. I challenge you to go to one. The people who attend his lectures are not the people who work in the industry.

He's rarely even in the right ballpark with his estimates. If you want to get numbers that are somewhat close to reliable then I recommend to you to dig up your data through Janes.

Nevertheless, I believe the "stealth" of the F-35 is being vastly exaggerated. My entire argument wasn't based on that one article. Although finding concrete details on the F-35's stealth is a bit difficult, for obvious reasons.

The F35 sacrifices everything that makes a great fighter - range, payload, agility - for a supposed huge advantage in stealth, that is to say, invisibility. Of course "stealth" is a relative term. Stealthy, compared to what? Stealthy, under what circumstances? Stealthy, for how long?

America's brass have informed Congress they're "discouraged" to discover that their country's lead in stealth technology is "eroding more quickly than anticipated."

It's beginning to sound that the F35 really isn't a long-term option. In fact it sounds like we're spending an enormous amount of money to acquire a paltry number of marginally performing aircraft that stands to be overtaken by superior technology fairly early in its projected service life. This is the sort of result you can expect when you're making your decisions ideologically.

Sorry but I still agree with the OP. And I really hate agreeing with him :P I still don't see how the F-35 is a better deal than the F-22, which was yesterdays fighter. In what areas is it even more advanced? None! It's a boondoggle.

quote: Sorry but I still agree with the OP. And I really hate agreeing with him :P I still don't see how the F-35 is a better deal than the F-22, which was yesterdays fighter. In what areas is it even more advanced? None! It's a boondoggle.

The F-22 wasn't yesterday's fighter, and the F-35 is not supposed to be a replacement for the F-22. The F-22 is the high end fighter that's replacing yesterday's F-15, and the F-35 is the "low-end" fighter that supposed to be replacing the Harrier (F-35B), F-18 (F-35C), and F-16 (F-35A). The problem is that it's turning out to be an expensive low-end fighter. It's like getting an F-16 for the F-15 price.

You're being a bit too literal, or not enough. The F-22 came before the F-35, much before, and yet the F-35 is so woefully less advanced in almost every category. That's why I called the F-22 "yesterdays" fighter.

What I mean is that the US always uses a high/low tactic when procuring fighter aircraft. It will purchase a high end air superiority fighter in smaller numbers and then a lower end, less expensive fighter in more numerous quantities.

High End: F-15 EagleLow End: F-16 Falcon

High End: F-14 TomcatLow End: F-18 Hornet

High End: F-22 RaptopLow End: F-35 Lightning II

While the lower end fighter is often procured after the higher end fighter, it's not supposed to be more capable than it, it's just supposed to be cheaper.

You also have to look at the development history of the F22. The Air Force was very eager to get the bird even though the funding was fully available. The project creep from a pure air superiority fighter to one of "Can do everything" was as much about funds acquisitions than it was about capabilities.

A lot of projects, weapons systems, and R&D siphoned had their funds siphoned off to the F-22. Every month there would be some new feature added to the 22's list of capabilities. In turn you would see a weapon system somewhere else have not only it's mission infringed upon but a considerable amount of its yearly budget diverted as well. Each time congress would cut funding or production numbers on the 22, another platform paid the price. A lot of it came out of the ISR community budget.

The downside to all it is that the shear amount of data converging into the cockpit of the 22 can easily overload a single pilot. I've worked with them on and off over the years and I'll say this "No plane has ever cried out more for a second seat than the F-22." But you'll never hear a USAF fighter pilot admit that.

Not saying you're wrong, but the idea of a second seat is preposterous in an F-22, given the costs in weight and fuel of a second seat/pilot. Part (or much, hopefully) of the problem associated with information overload should be alleviated with the F-22's "Sensor Fusion" design philosophy; it might be a bunch of marketing BS, but I don't think anyone can deny that the designers and engineers behind the Raptor realize the problem and have done their best to minimize it.

Or not present irrelevant information it at all. An F-22 pilot doing air-to-air doesn't need to know about all the ground-based SIGINT that his jet is detecting, just the threat rings of SAM sites, I would assume.

Increased wavelengths used by in-service search/track radars will ultimately render the VLO technology used on the F-35 useless.

As you probably know, the ability of any passive VLO technology to reduce or scatter radar signature is directly related to the wavelength of the radar interrogating it. When that wavelength becomes the same order of magnitude as features on the aircraft (such as ailerons, rudders, air intakes etc) then the VLO approach is completely nulled, the RCS will be almost exactly the same as a similarly non VLO treated aircraft.

Its not additional roles that will threaten the F-35, it is advancing radar technology.